We drove through Captiva island to embark on a Captiva Cruise to Cabbage Key, a tiny 404,685-square-metre island (key) one hour away by boat. From the dock, we carefully crossed the very shallow Pine Island Sound, so shallow that our guide causally mentioned that if we ran aground, they’d open up the bar while we waited to be unstuck by the Coast Guard!

Nothing untoward occurred, however we were occasionally entertained by pods of delightfully playful and curious dolphins. They love sounds and are attracted by the boat’s engine and any noise we cared to share.

Cabbage Key celebrates the Florida of 80 years ago when American novelist Mary Roberts Rinehart built her winter residence here. It is now the only inn and restaurant on the key. The ancient, white, wooden water tower is home to a couple of local ospreys, and, to our delight, the burrows of many gopher tortoises are found at the tower’s base.

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but at the Cabbage Key Restaurant it appears to be coming out of the walls and flutters down like dead leaves from the ceiling where banknotes from around the world hang like moths. This odd phenomenon began in the 1940s when a fisherman signed a dollar note and taped it behind the bar to prove he’d be good on his debt. The money, totalling tens of thousands of dollars per year, is collected and given to charity.

This is an excerpt from and article by Bruce Sach that originally appeared on dreamscapes.ca